Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded, accusing the United States and its allies of ignoring Moscow’s security concerns, thus elevating global concerns about a potential conflict between the world’s foremost nuclear powers.

The knee-jerk Congressional and corporate-owned media response has been predictable. Democrats in Congress proposed the “Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act of 2022 (H.R. 6470/S. 3488),” with a $500 million price tag, on top of the millions of dollars in weapons already rushed to Ukraine by the U.S., the United Kingdom and other NATO allies. There is resistance, especially among Black activists, even though this potential conflict is in Europe, not in Africa or Asia.

“The Democratic Party seems to (have) become the party of war,” Netfa Freeman with the Black Alliance for Peace told this writer in an interview. They “want to justify and rationalize and also distract from the ineptitude and neglect of this government to deal with its domestic problems: the pandemic; the rising, what we might refer to as police state tactics against working class poor people, particularly Black and Brown people in this country. It’s just a distraction from the failures of the Biden Administration.”

The reason for the emergency mobilization—which included the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, Maryland Peace Action, CodePink Women for Peace, and Black Alliance for Peace—is clear, the organizers said.

“Biden really withdrew troops from Afghanistan just to deploy them to Eastern Europe,” tweeted CodePink in response to the news. “The priorities of the U.S. clearly haven’t changed. It will take a massive anti-war movement to end this!”

“What have we seen from the U.S. corporate media?” Sean Blackmon with the ANSWER Coalition told a hastily arranged rally in Lafayette Park, across from the White House on Jan. 27. “They have been out of their minds with the drumbeat of war. And so, we see that there is no real voice of peace inside this U.S. government. Democrats, Republicans. We know that war and imperialism is a bipartisan issue.”

There has been only a trickle of support on Capitol Hill. “Instead of spending $500 million on weapons, we should be centering civilian needs with refugee and humanitarian assistance,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said in a scathing report issued Feb. 3. The proposal now working its way through Congress “escalates the conflict without deterring it effectively,” Rep. Omar said. “When the United States says it champions human rights, democracy, and peace, we should mean it.”

In addition to the 8,500 troops placed on high alert, the Pentagon announced that it would send 3,000 troops to three NATO nations in Eastern Europe amid accusations by Russian and Ukrainian officials as well as anti-war advocates that the U.S. is escalating tensions in the region.

Mr. Biden directed the Department of Defense to send troops to Poland, Germany, and Romania after meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley on Feb. 1. According to Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, the deployment is “appropriate, defensive, and non-escalatory” and was in response to the 100,000 troops Russia has assembled at the Ukrainian border.

“It’s important we send a strong signal to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and frankly to the world that NATO matters to the United States and it matters to our allies,” Mr. Kirby told reporters Feb. 1, this, despite the fact, as a reporter pointed out to Mr. Kirby, NATO nations have not voted on the decision to deploy troops.

“A big part of this whole narrative has been characterizing Russia as the aggressor,” Mr. Blackmon told the Jan. 27 rally. “Why? Because they assembled their military forces inside their own borders. But how is Russia the aggressor? How many Russian military bases are surrounding the United States? None.

“It is the U.S. and NATO that have made it a point to surround Russia,” he continued. “Shut down AFRICOM. Shut down the 800-some-odd military bases and installations that the United States has all across this Earth, and not you, not me, not anybody gets any more security with these bases. The only thing that’s being protected are the profits of the war profiteers, our wealthy, elite, and the political ruling class,” Mr. Blackmon said.

“The Black Alliance for Peace is unapologetically opposed to NATO, a White supremacist structure responsible for Black death from the Portuguese colonies in Africa to the racist attack on Libya!” Mr. Freeman continued, insisting that this potential war in Europe is as dangerous to world peace as an attack on African soil would be.

“What I think we should have to understand is that the mobilizations, the militarization the United States has, no matter where it is, is reflected upon the whole world, so it’s not just standing up for the people of Ukraine and for the rights of the people of Russia, but it’s really about humanity,” said Mr. Freeman.

“When we look at what NATO, the U.S., (they) are the ones that we have to think of because, really, (NATO’s) just the extension of White supremacist capitalist, patriarchal dominance, around the world. We also have to remember that it’s the same forces and the same agenda that has destroyed Libya, that has this octopus type presence in Africa through the U.S.-Africa command, with AFRICOM, and all around the world.”

“With a very soft trigger, it vaults Ukraine overnight into the third-highest recipient (behind Israel and Egypt) of U.S. security assistance and weapons sales in the world,” Rep. Omar warned. “The consequences of flooding Ukraine with half a billion dollars in American weapons, likely not limited to just military-specific equipment but also including small arms and ammo, are unpredictable and likely disastrous,” Rep. Omar said.

“And do we really think, that the United States cares about the sovereignty or democracy inside Ukraine?” Mr. Blackmon asked rhetorically. “We know that this war would be catastrophic, not just for us in the United States, not just for Ukraine, not just for Russia, but for humanity itself. So, this independent, anti-imperialist movement has to be the voice of reason.

“It is going to take the movement for an effort outside of the political establishment to really end this war drive, because if we leave it up to Joe Biden, if we leave it up to the Democrats, if leave it up to the Republicans, if we leave it up to that millionaire club that they call Congress, they will push us all into oblivion,” said Mr. Blackmon. “And we’re here to say, ‘No more.’”

“This is an issue of humanity,” said Mr. Freeman, “and the more that the U.S. is empowered and feels emboldened to be able to do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, then it’s a threat to all of us, and as not to mention that the more the United States militarizes in other places of the world, it also affects the militarization, the domestic militarization, (which) is pointed and targeted mostly at our communities here in the United States.

“The public in the United States is bombarded with so much false information and lack of historical context that we hope that this is making a difference, and in fact what we do know is that the public is not as gullible as the forces to be hoped they would. The only difference is they probably just don’t know what to do about it,” Mr. Freeman said, insisting that concerned persons organize, or join a radical organization opposed to U.S. militarization.

The post Activists call out U.S. role in Russia-Ukraine dispute appeared first on Final Call News.

Mr. Biden is in fact the second, consecutive weak Democrat in the Oval Office—President Barack Obama being the first—and he owes both winning the party nomination and his general election victory to strong support from Black voters, voters whose political leaders now appear to be settling in to roles of responsibility for the increasing chaos, rather than rocking the boat, or abandoning the sinking U.S. ship.

“I think what he’s been doing in the past week or two about the voting rights legislation is performance,” Dr. Ray Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University, said in an interview. “Because Black folk are his base. I think he’s saying, ‘Look, I just want you all to know publicly that I really tried to do this, but I can’t get it passed.’ And that’s politics as usual.”

White nationalism has drawn the country apart at its tender racial seam. The neo-liberal Democratic Party establishment, including its Black elite, don’t want to believe that a new “Cold Civil War (a war without shooting)” is already underway. White people, however, are clear, and they’ve used their church in the effort.

White, Christian nationalists mobilized a broad social base for Donald Trump and the Republicans. Soon, through control over levers of state and federal power, as well as key cultural and religious institutions, Christian nationalists could find themselves well positioned to shape the nation for a long time to come, according to a prominent White Christian theologian.

“Christian nationalism has influenced the course of American politics and policy since the founding of this country,” said the Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of The Poor Peoples Campaign/Repairers of the Breach, in an interview. There is a “threat of a modern form of Christian nationalism that has carefully built political power in government, the media, the academy, and the military over the past half-century. Today, the social forces committed to it are growing bolder and increasingly able to win mainstream support.”

Whether it’s the national movement clamoring to refuse to permit the history of racist repression in this country to be taught in classrooms, even in classrooms where it is not already taught, as if hiding the truth makes it any less ugly; or whether its 400 laws proposed since Mr. Biden took office which would make it less likely for Black people to vote in coming elections; whatever it is, spoken or unspoken, White voters in this country are increasingly choosing the message which favors White people. Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris seem to be deaf to the cry.

The 2020 post-election, attempted coup d’état was a dress rehearsal. The armed White nationalists are and have been locked and loaded, with plans already in place to guarantee that future elections in this country are decided in favor of the candidates they prefer, regardless of the vote count.

“If you listen to that speech that Trump made last Saturday in Arizona,” Dr. Winbush continued, “where he said, ‘They’re trying to take the vote away from White people. They’re making you wait in line behind Black and Latinos for medicine.’ He actually said that. His followers, are preparing for war.” The former president spoke at a GOP rally in Florence, Arizona, on Jan. 15.

White vigilantes have long been prepared all over the country, now local governments are getting into the act. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed forming voting police forces, which would help guarantee the outcomes which Republicans prefer in the 2022 and 2024 elections, and there’s not much Mr. Biden can do about that.

“I’m not kidding, I really believe there’s going to be a race war that Carl Rowan predicted almost 30 years ago, in this country,” Dr. Winbush continued. “I think that we, as Black people just don’t think it will happen. We used to, could rely on the Supreme Court. We cannot, they (Supreme Court) eviscerated the Voting Rights Act.”

Now, with the failure of federal voting rights protection in the Senate, and Mr. Biden’s efforts to deliver on a Black Agenda purely performative and not productive, there are no remaining federal protectors—executive, legislative, or judicial—in the face of an increasingly hostile White population.

“We’ve had two fairly weak Democratic presidents in a row, Obama and Biden,” said Dr. Winbush. “And we’ve had one bully president, Trump, who forced things. Biden thinks if he plays Mr. Nice Guy, things are going to change. The Republicans aren’t going to do anything. And he should have realized that a long time ago.”

So, when it comes to assigning a letter grade to the president’s performance, Professor Winbush may have been generous. “I don’t know, he says he’s going to act more presidential than senatorial. We’ll see, but as a Black voter, I would give this dude a C, perhaps a C-.”

The post Failed promises, partisan gridlock mark Biden’s first year appeared first on Final Call News.

Their opposition all but dooms the prospect the 117th Congress will pass voting rights legislation. President Joe Biden held out his party’s hope against hope. “I hope we can get this done. The honest-to-God answer is I don’t know whether we can get this done,” Mr. Biden told reporters after his party’s defectors spoke on Jan. 13.

What Democrats have yet to acknowledge, let alone offer an answer for, is the increasing racial hostility among Whites—a majority of whom voted for defeated Republican Donald J. Trump.

“Look, the Republican Party has a stranglehold on the Euro-American vote, which has been the case for more than a half century,” Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of History and African Studies at the University of Houston, said in an interview. “A high percentage of that electorate feels the 2020 election was stolen.

“A percentage of that majority thinks that violence might be necessary to reach their political goals. So, I’m sympathetic to the voting rights activists, I’m with the voting rights activists. However, realistically speaking, things don’t look very promising right now. You know, I would prefer to be an optimist, but I have to be a realist.”

The reality is that even the best case electoral scenario does not guarantee success for candidates who might be responsive to the needs of Black voters in 2022 or 2024. After each successive victory, Blacks discover the goalposts have been moved.

Most post-election analysis credits strong support from Black voters—particularly in Georgia where Democrats won two Senate seats and the first Electoral College victory in Georgia in decades—with providing Mr. Biden’s party a razor-thin margin in the Senate.

“To protect our democracy, I support changing the Senate rules, whichever way they need to be changed, to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights. When it comes to protecting majority rule in America, the majority should rule in the United States Senate,” Mr. Biden said at a rally, staged at Atlanta’s historic Black college center. Despite his optimism, Mr. Biden probably knew his plan was doomed.

But a coalition of voting rights groups in Georgia announced that they would not attend events surrounding Mr. Biden’s trip to Atlanta. “We don’t need even more photo ops. We need action, and that action is in the form of the John Lewis Voting Rights (Advancement) Act as well as the Freedom to Vote Act, and we need that immediately,” Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told reporters ahead of the visit.

But several civil rights leaders did attend the speeches in Atlanta, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Marc Morial, the president of the National Urban League; Derrick Johnson, the head of the NAACP; Melanie Campbell, the chief executive of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and others.

Most of the civil rights leadership is engaged with influential White political figures, rather than organizing a “bottom-up” campaign to turn out Black “souls at the polls,” regardless of the Republican erected obstacles. In 2020 the Black surge at the polls may have caught Republicans off guard.

“What we saw in 2020, was record numbers (at the polls), and especially among poor and low-income people in a bunch of battleground states,” the Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign, Repairers of the Breach, told this writer in an interview for “Monday Morning QB,” heard on WPFW-FM Washington.

“The folks that voted, not just registered to vote, not just were eligible to vote, but who voted in the 2020 election were poor, low-income people, 40 percent right. I mean, that’s a huge, huge number, huge percentage. And those folks are out there voting. And so, I think it is true that there’s many things that get in the way of poor and low-income people voting. Sometimes there’s voter suppression, and also the voter suppression of the lack of transportation, and being able to get off work, and not having the time to wait in these long lines, and all of that.”

Efforts at voter suppression are very real in 2022. Already, according to the Brennan Center, 400 laws have been introduced in 49 states restricting voter access.

It may already be too late to reverse the tide which has eroded the foundation of the constitutional democracy and its 230-year tradition of peaceful transfers of power.

“That brings us back to what I consider to be the fundamental question,” said Dr. Horne. “I mean, the United States and in fact many of my progressive friends, they’re like the patient who shows up to the hospital after smoking three packs of cigarettes a day for 30 years, and then wants a miracle cure.

“It’s going to be very difficult. It might happen. It might happen, but it’s unlikely,” said Dr. Horne. “You have scholars who are talking about the United States on the verge of civil war.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that, in some ways, the situation in the United States is either spinning out of control or has spun out of control. And so, I’m sympathetic to those who are counseling voting, carve out for the filibuster and all the rest. But I think all of us need a plan B and (plan) C quite frankly.”

The Rev. Theoharis is not yet discouraged. “We, in the Poor People’s Campaign, reached out to more than 2 million poor and low-income, what they call low propensity voters in the 2020 elections,” she said.

“And that means folks that hadn’t voted in a couple of elections. Some folks hadn’t voted in two presidential elections. We reached out to more than 2 million of those in about 15 borderline states. And what we found was that folks voted when we reached out to them, when we talked about an agenda that was about living wages, and healthcare, and addressing climate issues, and systemic racism, that people statistically, we were able to impact people’s participation in the election.

“And so, we know it works, and we plan to keep on doing it. We know others are planning to keep on doing it, and really be able to make an impact,” Rev. Theoharis said.

The post Happy talk, no action in the voting rights shuffle appeared first on Final Call News.

In the early days of 2021, on Jan. 6, a violent, armed mob of mostly White Americans intent on overturning the majority 2020 presidential election result, did what no foreign power could ever do: they stormed the U.S. Capitol, the seat of the United States government, some waving secessionist Confederate battle flags.

The mob attacked and beat Capitol Police officers and called for the hanging of Mike Pence, the U.S. vice president at the time, who was presiding over the Electoral College certification of the defeat of President Donald J. Trump’s reelection bid. Five people, four of them Capitol Police officers, died as a result of the melee.

Now, after interviewing hundreds of witnesses, issuing more than 50 subpoenas, and reviewing more than 35,000 pages of documents, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is revealing some of its findings. At the same time, some critics warn that Jan. 6 may have been just a dress rehearsal for another attempted coup to come, a fascist takeover that would guarantee outright White supremacy in this country, even as Whites become a minority population.

The investigation appears to be drawing closer to Mr. Trump and his allies. While they appear to be trying to stop the committee from getting the information it wants.

Numerous videos of the incident reveal there was some military-style communication among the attacking throng. But even more para-military intrigue was revealed recently.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported that the committee is interested in the phone calls Mr. Trump made late on the night of Jan. 5, before the insurrection, to two so-called “war rooms” at the Willard Hotel, just one block from the White House complex. One war room contained lawyers and the other non-lawyers.

Mr. Lowell reported that on at least one of the calls Mr. Trump made in the hours before January 6, he tried to press his allies into a scheme to replace Mr. Biden’s certified Electoral College electors with uncertified electors pledged to him.

With former White House advisor Steve Bannon, and presidential lawyer Rudolph Giuliani presiding over the “war rooms,” they even assigned a code name—“Green Bay Sweep”—to the operation, according to writer Heather Cox Richardson.

A Harvard-educated member of the insurrection team, who says he devised the scheme, said the strategy was perfect. They would exert maximum pressure on Vice President Pence to block the certification of the Electoral College votes from swing states, by drawing out the proceedings on national television for as long as 24 hours.

“It was a perfect plan,” Peter Navarro, then-President Donald Trump’s trade advisor, told the Daily Beast. “We had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”

Mr. Navarro’s recently published memoir details how he stayed in close contact with Mr. Bannon as they put the Green Bay Sweep in motion with help from members of Congress loyal to the cause. While their plans may have been well thought out, they were far from being perfectly executed.

But the notion that Jan. 6, 2020 may have been a “dress rehearsal” for the uprising which eventually installs a dictatorship in this country is not so far-fetched.

In fact, three retired Army generals—former Major Gen. Paul Eaton, former Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, and former Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson—wrote in the Washington Post recently that they were “increasingly concerned” about the 2024 election and the “potential for lethal chaos inside our military” if certain military units don’t agree with the election outcome.

“Lethal chaos” would justify urgent, dictatorial measures, the suspension of Constitutional guarantees, the suspension of various legal protection, after of course the “fascists”—as more and more analysts have begun to describe the right-wing forces—take firm control of the levers of power.

The ongoing conflict and strife being witnessed in America is further evidence of a country falling apart as taught by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. What he revealed decades ago is coming to pass. “America, in trying to hold her place as the greatest power among the nations of the earth, is one of the most troubled countries on earth today,” Mr. Muhammad wrote in his book, “The Fall of America.”

His top student and National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, told the world in early 2020 that what was being witnessed was the “unraveling of a great nation.”

“When you unravel something, you undo twisted, knitted, or woven threads; you investigate and solve or explain something complicated or puzzling. The condition of America is puzzling.  The world is looking at a country going to hell,” Min. Farrakhan stated during his Saviours’ Day message February 23, 2020, in Detroit.

A Capitol Police officer warned that the Jan. 6 attackers were in fact aided and abetted by members of Congress. Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who was injured in the Jan. 6 attack, told Congress last July that he believed he was going to be killed by angry Trump supporters during the riot, and he told NPR in December that he and his colleagues are worried it will happen again—and again.

“A lot of the officers have in mind the possibility of this being a recurring annual or every four-year thing, which is why officers like myself are being outspoken about it, because we don’t want to go through this again,” Officer Gonell told NPR.

“It’s mind-boggling to hear some of the things that are coming from some of these elected officials. But at the end of the day, our job is to make them safe and make their work environment safer, regardless of our opinion or political affiliation,” he said.

Mr. Trump, and the Jan. 6 insurrection; the 2017 Unite the Right, rally in Charlottesville, Va.; and Kyle Rittenhouse, are all linked to burgeoning White supremacy in this country. And White people are not bashful about it any longer. And conversely, at their core, claims of “voter fraud” are “anti-Black,” pure and simple.

President Joe Biden may have even caught on. In a recent speech at Washington’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Mr. Biden described the January 6 insurrection as being about “White supremacy.”

“The violent, deadly insurrection on the Capitol nine months ago, it was about White supremacy, in my opinion,” Mr. Biden said of the riot, during a speech acknowledging the 10-year anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. “The through-line is that hate never goes away,” the president said.

Mr. Trump, however, is resorting to every means at his disposal to prevent the facts of what happened that day from being revealed, thus shielding him from accountability for his actions. His latest legal maneuver was a Supreme Court filing, amending an appeal before the court. It cites a Washington Post article which he asserts, proves that Congressional Democrats are on a “political witch hunt” to bring him down.

According to Courthouse News, Mr. Trump is asking the justices to review the article, which he claims proves that the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) admits that the committee wants information to determine if they will make a criminal referral to the Justice Department. In his new filing, Mr. Trump claims these statements prove the committee is “acting outside its authority.”

Mr. Trump’s claims have been repeatedly rejected in courts, since the election, even by judges he appointed to the bench. At the same time, GOP Congressional leaders, many of whom are being revealed as being complicit in the plot, insist nothing untoward happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Citizens were merely expressing their free speech rights, they claim. They condemn the presidential election, even though they were themselves chosen for office on those same ballots.

Freshman Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) feels otherwise. She sent out a tweet Dec. 27 urging her fellow House members to pass a proposed bill that would investigate and ultimately expel members of Congress involved in the January 6 attack.

Rep. Bush stated that House of Representatives should “commemorate the 1-year-anniversary of January 6th by passing my House Resolution 25 to investigate and expel the members of Congress who helped incite the violent insurrection at our Capitol.”

“Whereas despite losing the popular vote by more than 7,000,000 votes,” the resolution reads, “Donald J. Trump, together with Republican Members of Congress, have commenced a near daily assault on the legitimacy of the 2020 election.”

This includes “the decision … to join efforts to invalidate votes in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin suppressing the votes of millions of people,” as well as “refusing to concede the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election and raising baseless allegations of fraud in States in which Black, Brown, and Indigenous people have been instrumental to the election outcome,” according to the bill. “This is sedition,” she said.

Her bill references Section Three of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This clause states that “no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States…who…shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

A conservative Republican Congress member openly expressed her anti-Black feelings, defaming Kwanzaa as “fake religion.” And a prominent mainstream Christian clergy have defamed Black social causes as “pseudo-religions.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) referred to Kwanzaa as a “fake religion” on Twitter Dec. 26. The message came on the first day of the weeklong holiday celebrated by millions of Black people. Rep. Greene made the remark in response to a Twitter post by the College Republican National Committee (CRNC), a group of conservative college students. “Stop. It’s a fake religion created by a psychopath,” Rep. Greene tweeted back to the group’s message. “You aren’t bringing in new voters, you are turning them away. People are tired of pandering and BS.”

Meanwhile, Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke out against “new social justice movements” such as Black Lives Matter during a speech in late December, decrying them as “pseudo-religions” that ultimately serve as “dangerous substitutes for true religion.”

Archbishop Gomez, heads the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He delivered the remarks in a video message sent to a meeting of the Congress of Catholics and Public Life in Madrid. He argued that the United States, like Europe, has been subject to “aggressive secularization,” insisting that “there has been a deliberate effort in Europe and America to erase the Christian roots of society and to suppress any remaining Christian influences.”

Unspoken, but taken for granted is that “Christian influences,” mean White supremacy.

The post A Nation in Peril: One year since the insurrection, America continues its downward spiral appeared first on Final Call News.

Mr. Trump’s blatant hostility toward Black people, toward Black ambitions, toward Muslims has spilled over into the public at large, to Congress, to local school boards, courtrooms, classrooms so that White people seem newly unrestrained from participating in belligerent, racist behavior.

There is no such thing as a civil discourse any longer, not even in the highest offices. One Republican Congressmember, for example, who boasts of legally carrying a concealed weapon, goaded Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) as being a member of the “Jihad Squad,” as if to taunt her into a shouting match, or worse.

Establishment Democratic Party leaders find themselves politically outmuscled, again and again by now rabidly conservative Republicans who are sometimes joined in the Senate by “moderate” Democrats, Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Those two have virtual veto power, because every single Democratic Senate vote, plus the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris is needed in order to get any of Mr. Biden’s agenda approved because of the solid solidarity of GOP members who want the Democrats, and especially Black ambitions to fail.

“Honestly, I’m frustrated with every Democrat who agreed to tie the fate of our most vulnerable communities to the corporatist ego of one Senator,” Rep. Cori Bush said angrily via social media when Mr. Manchin announced during a television interview Dec. 19, that he would not support Mr. Biden’s $1.75 trillion, signature “Build Back Better,” economic stimulus legislation.

Others pointed fingers at Mr. Biden for not disciplining rebellious senators like Mr. Manchin inside the Democratic “big tent.” Vice President Kamala Harris even had to defend Mr. Biden during a testy exchange with media host Charlamagne Tha God Dec. 17, when he raised questions about Mr. Biden’s handling of roadblocks to passage of his social spending package.

On Comedy Central’s “Tha God’s Honest Truth,” the vice president touted the administration’s infrastructure package, work addressing maternal mortality issues and police reform. But the host repeatedly pressed Ms. Harris about the inaction on much of Mr. Biden’s agenda, pointing in particular to Sen. Manchin.

Mr. Manchin, he said, is “hurting Black people in particular” by holding up progress on key parts of the president’s agenda, and he warned that Black voter turnout could decline if the roadblocks continue.

“I want to know who the real president of this country is, is it Joe Biden, or Joe Manchin?” he asked repeatedly. “No, no, no, no,” she replied. “C’mon, Charlamagne. It’s Joe Biden,” the vice president said.  “It’s Joe Biden, and don’t start talking like a Republican, about asking whether or not he’s president.”

That is the crux of the dilemma for Democrats. White voters are increasingly joining on, or silently condoning the worst racist and xenophobic conduct by the radical, potentially violent conservative factions such as the Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters, who have the solid support of “Freedom Caucus” Republicans in Congress.

But Democrats—White Democrats—see voters such as those in Virginia who chose a conservative governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in elections over Democratic incumbents this November are leaning more and more toward conservative, pro-Trump, often racist candidates, and in the process rejecting elements of the so-called “Black agenda” embedded in Democratic Party policies, especially in the form of rejecting education reforms, such as accurate teaching of the treatment of Black people in this society for nearly 500 years, a debate that is known as “Critical Race Theory,” and “The 1619 Project.”

In a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll, White voters did not equivocate. Nearly 70 percent of Republicans said they want Mr. Trump to run for president again in 2024. Let’s remember, a majority of White voters—male, female, and most age-economic groups—voted for Mr. Trump in 2020. He lost the election because a plurality of White voters, and vast majorities of Black and other non-White voters, turned out against him.

Now, in private life, racist behavior is seen openly, more and more among Whites of every age group. The University of Richmond suspended a fraternity in mid-December after a video surfaced showing some members singing “I want to be a slave owner,” and “The South will rise again.” Elsewhere, a mother pulled her 16-year-old from the $22,000 per year International School of Indiana because her daughter was tired of hearing the “N-word” from White students who she said, are “proud” to be racists. “They just walk around saying it proudly,” the student said.

In another school, in Wheatland, Calif., north of Sacramento, a video surfaced on social media, showing several Wheatland High students with swastikas drawn on their bodies.

As a result of this conspicuous energy among Whites all over the country, political observers are forecasting a Republican sweep of the House of Representatives in 2022, and a presidential sweep in 2024, even without having to resort to violent tactics—for which the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection may have been only a dress rehearsal.

In fact, three retired Army generals—former Major Gen. Paul Eaton, former Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, and former Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson—wrote in the Washington Post recently that they were “increasingly concerned” about the 2024 election and the “potential for lethal chaos inside our military.”

“Lethal chaos” would justify urgent, dictatorial measures, the suspension of Constitutional guarantees, the suspension of various legal protection, after of course the “fascists”—as more and more analysts have begun to describe the right-wing forces—take firm control of the levers of power.

In 2022, the U.S. appears headed toward more and more repression, especially when it comes to the Black Agenda.

The post Democratic Dilemmas, GOP Roadblocks And Political Chaos appeared first on Final Call News.

The newest plaintiffs—Felicia Carson and Lisa Burton—join a group of former police cadets and 10 former and current Black, female officers who are suing the MPD because of victimization in what their lawsuit describes as an “enterprise-wide culture of race and sex discrimination and intense retaliation against those who complain.”

In the most recent suit, the IAD chief is accused of using “power to cull Black women from IAD, and to manipulate its investigative process to protect white police officers accused of misconduct.” One misconduct charge involves a complaint, which has been dropped, against a White officer accused of brutalizing a young, Black male suspect.

Ms. Carson, a 19-year internal affairs veteran, was investigating a White officer who had been caught by a body worn camera “lying about an investigation, falsely arresting a young Black man, (and) grabbing him by his throat,” attorney Pam Keith said in an interview. “Claiming, first, that he assaulted a police officer, which was nonsense, then claiming that he resisted arrest, which is also nonsense. And when he got caught lying about it all, he maintained his dishonesty.”

That White cop’s case was referred to a disciplinary review board, according to attorney Keith, “just weeks before the disciplinary review board was supposed to take place, the head of internal affairs fired my client, and shortly thereafter, the disciplinary review board was canceled, and the officer was put back to work.”

Facts surrounding the earlier case are just as shocking. One of the 10 plaintiffs was once cited as MPD “Officer of the Year,” and another is now an assistant chief of police. The officers suing in that case have more than 237 years of combined service. (Read previous coverage on this case in, Final Call Vol. 41 No. 3 article, ‘When you’re Black, you’re never blue enough’: The experiences of Black women in policing.)

“In this particular situation, it’s just where women by definition are more vulnerable, because men in this particular situation have dominated these women without recourse,” attorney Donald Temple, who represents the 10 officers, said in an interview.

Those plaintiffs are: Sinobia Brinkley, Tabatha Knight, Karen Carr, Tiara Brown, Leslie Clark, Chanel Dickerson, Regenna Grier, Tamika Hampton, Lashaun Lockerman and Kia Mitchell.

“We’re tired of being bullied by a system that don’t want to change, a culture that don’t want to change, (in which) they’re going to continue to operate in a good old boy system. And we’ve had enough,” said former officer Sinobia Brinkley at a press conference.

“The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department institutionally and systematically discriminates against African American women employees who suffer almost on a daily basis a double standard,” attorney Temple told the reporters at a press conference. “This is a landmark case because these individual women who are seated next to and behind me have the courage and the audacity to no longer stutter, endure, run from a system that alters and painstakingly affects every day of their lives.”

The lawsuit says that each plaintiff has complained multiple times about unfair treatment based on their race and gender to either the Department’s EEO officials and/or their managers, to no avail.

They insist that the MPD has, for decades, “treated Black women police officers with contempt, to the point of systematic psychological abuse.”

The toxic culture which resulted in this behavior, Mr. Temple said, goes up to management levels, and to the highest management levels.

In Ms. Carson’s case, “the person who inserted himself into the process was chief of internal affairs. And that man is racist. And he uses his power to favor White officers and disfavor Black officers, especially Black women,” said attorney Keith. “When he took over the department, there were nine Black female agents out of 24 agents. Now there’s two Black agents out of 29 agents. He dropped the number of women in that department from 37 percent to less than seven percent.”

Ironically, for much of the time these alleged offenses occurred, a woman was the Metropolitan Police Chief, and the incumbent mayor—Muriel Bowser—is a Black woman, and yet, both attorneys insist, they ignored the problem despite numerous complaints. MPD has mostly declined to comment about the ongoing litigation.

“While we cannot discuss the specific allegations due to pending litigation, the Metropolitan Police Department is committed to treating all members fairly and equitably throughout our organization,” a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department told WJLA-TV7. “We take these allegations seriously and we will be reviewing them thoroughly and responding accordingly.”

That’s not good enough, said attorney Keith. “Neither the mayor, nor the police chief have shown any concern,” she said. “Not the least little bit. What do they care? Not the least a little bit. They’ve got nothing to say.

“They don’t have to actually address any of these things. This young man’s civil rights were absolutely trounced on, and people ought to be infuriated, because I sure am. And like I said, this is not me alleging this. The chief of internal affairs signed off on the report, but he fired my client so that she could remain silent. And he kept the White officer,” attorney Keith continued.

In all there are three lawsuits by Black females against the MPD. A third suit was filed by former police cadets.

“Sadly, the MPD cadet program and the academy has become as infected with the systematic retaliation as the rest of the MPD,” attorney Keith said, including a sergeant “who had been engaging in favoritism, unprofessional behavior and had decided to take a particularly close relationship with some of the cadets.

When cadets complained, the sergeant was reportedly allowed to read and see the statements, and afterwards began “a completely untethered retaliatory campaign against them,” including harassment, disciplinary action and putting them on assignment where they did nothing but sit in a building for eight hours a day,” the attorney added.

“This battle is going to be a battle that if we have (to), on behalf of the class action, on behalf of similar situated women in the department, then it’s going to be necessary. But we think there will be something that ultimately in the end will help us to change the culture of the police department and the level of accountability and transparency in the department so that we can effectively protect the democracy in the city and the democracy in the country,” attorney Temple concluded.

The post ‘We’ve had enough!’ More Black female cops sue D.C. Metropolitan Police Department appeared first on Final Call News.

On Monday morning, Nov. 15, attorney Donald Temple, a Howard alumnus and former trustee, and a cadre of students who had been occupying the campus, made an announcement. “After 33 days of student struggle, we have reached an agreement with the administration,” student Channing Hill told this writer in an exclusive interview for WPFW-FM’s “Monday Morning QB.”

“We have done what we set out to do, increased local safety for students, health for students. We have accomplished more accountability in our university, transparency. We want to thank all the community for supporting us, alumni and faculty, our parents, and of course, Mr. Temple for supporting us and helping us throughout the entire process.”

Students demanded an in-person town hall with Howard’s president and other officials, the permanent reinstatement of student, alumni and faculty affiliate positions that are being removed from the school’s board of trustees, a meeting with university leaders about housing and legal, disciplinary and academic immunity for protesters.

“Howard University is pleased to announce we have come to an agreement with the students who occupied Blackburn,” the school said in a statement. Specific details of the agreement were not revealed, though university President Dr. Wayne A.l. Frederick praised the solution. “The health and well-being of our students is the most important part of my job as president. As I have said before, even one issue in one of our dormitories is too many, and we will continue to remain vigilant in our pledge to maintain safe and high-end housing.”

Students had complained of vermin and mold infestations in some university housing facilities. In fact, just hours before the students and the university announced they had reached an agreement, university officials confirmed the school had responded to an embarrassing flood on the fourth floor of College Hall South, a student residence hall.

Among other hazards from the flooding, the school officials said they were working to prevent conditions that could cause mold. Persistent mold in residence halls is one of the many complaints voiced by students protesting over the last several weeks.

The protests gained national attention and even brought out some of the university’s most famous alumni, such as Debbie Allen who, “checked in” on students who were protesting outside of the Blackburn Center, even though her sister Phylicia Rashad is dean of the School of Fine Arts, and was mainly supportive of the administration.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the Rev. William Barber II and Martin Luther King III publicly supported the students. The Rev. Jackson was even hospitalized briefly after suffering a fall on campus attending a meeting to mediate the situation with students and the university administration.

Student activists and civil rights leaders say the controversy is indicative of a widespread issue with crumbling buildings on old HBCU campuses that are often underfunded compared to predominately White institutions.

“The students courageously journeyed on a path toward greater university accountability and transparency and public safety,” Mr. Temple said in an interview.

In a video statement, university President Frederick called the agreement “a welcome development, and a necessary end to a challenging few weeks for everyone involved.”

Mason Calhoun, one of the freshmen who joined the protests, told “Dcist” that at least three of their demands were met. But a fourth demand: the reinstatement of students, faculty, and alumni to the Board of Trustees is “still in limbo because there are external things like litigation going on that we don’t really have too much control over as students.”

Student Channing Hill was emphatic about her own graduation in two years. “Does the prospect of being a graduate in 2023, mean that the students were granted amnesty?” we asked. “Well, we can’t answer that question for legal reasons,” attorney Temple interjected. “As this young lady said, she’s expecting to graduate and we’re expecting to see you at her graduation maybe.”

While not offering details on what the next steps will be, Dr. Frederick said he will continue to “work collaboratively” to build a culture where the concerns of everyone are heard. He said he would share details “soon on our ideas that will address concerns and build a culture where all are heard.”

The post Howard students, official reach protest-ending agreement appeared first on Final Call News.

They under-calculated. Like the opening salvos on Ft. Sumter, 140 years ago, the successful GOP 2021 assault was the opening round in the war to overthrow the United States and establish an even more pro-White garrison than already exists here.

Looking at recent electoral trends, some analysts are now warning that U.S. “democracy” is imperiled by White supremacy, despite the fact that the country was born in White supremacy in 1776, to preserve the enslavement of Black people when England was threatening to abolish slavery in its colony.

The 2021 election in Virginia turned on race pure and simple. White voters in the newly liberal suburbs voted their skin color, fears and biases, electing a pro-Trump governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Republican business tycoon Glenn Youngkin condemned former Gov. Terry McAuliffe for condoning “Critical Race Theory,” the name of a slogan right-wingers attached to schools teaching about this country’s true racial past.

Fear and anger now rule the day, driving White people to embrace or condone racist, supremacist ideology. “The fact that we’re having a conversation about Critical Race Theory that is not taught in public schools in Virginia, it just goes to show how Republicans have decided that picking at White grievance and tap-dancing with White supremacy is their way back into power,” commentator Jonathan Capehart said recently on the “PBS NewsHour.” “Yes, the Democrats should be afraid, because fear works. And I like to say, whiteness is a hell of a drug.”

Democrats on the other hand are often vague about race, not wanting to aggravate their own White sensibilities as they work to deliver on the just demands of Black people, their most loyal constituency.

“The government only wants to pacify her once slaves with fancy false promises that she knows she cannot fulfill without the loss of friendship and bloodshed among her own people,” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote in “Our Saviour Has Arrived.” “But there is nothing like a good future in those rosy promises for the so-called Negroes.”

There was one hollow victory for President Joe Biden’s agenda in the election wake. In an extraordinary session, a normal 15-minute vote in the House of Representatives to approve the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, was kept open for more than eight hours, as House Democratic leaders and White House officials coaxed and pleaded enough holdout progressive Democrats to go along. Congressmembers Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) all voted no.

The measure includes $550 billion in new investments for bridges, roads, airports, waterways, public transit and broadband infrastructure. Lawmakers, however, did not vote for the Democrats’ more expansive climate and social safety package, after conservative Democrats insisted on waiting for a cost analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, which could take days or even weeks.

While Democrats coddled and handled with kid gloves their belligerent, conservative Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), and Kirsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)—who fought against Biden targets—some grassroots Republicans threatened violence against the handful of GOP House members who voted in favor of the infrastructure deal.

“Here are the ‘Republicans’ that just voted to help Biden screw America,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted recently, branding the 13 who voted for the Biden package “traitors,” and sharing pictures and phone numbers of them.

One caller instructed Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) to slit his wrists and “rot in hell.” Another hoped Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) would slip and fall down a staircase, according to The New York Times. The office of Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) has been inundated with angry messages tagging her as a “traitor.”

It’s war. White Republicans declared it. White Democrats dread it. Many Black Democrats remain in denial about it.

“It’s not the messaging, folks. This country simply loves white supremacy,” tweeted journalist Jemele Hill, a contributing writer for The Atlantic.

“There is not yet a willingness to confront the landscape of American politics,” Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund tweeted. “The [Virginia] race was not abt ‘education’ or ‘enthusiasm’ or ‘change.’ There’s no ability to engage w/the grim reality of an electorate of White voters primed to embrace racial threats,” she said.

“I think we also have to engage with the deep commitment many Americans have to the racialized mythologies that have been the staples of American education and media for centuries. The tribal motivation to maintain and retransmit them is stronger than the commitment to democracy,” Ms. Ifill continued.

White Democrats in Virginia were not enthusiastic for Mr. McAuliffe because they are not prepared to go “all in” to fight for the new, Black Lives Matter agenda.

White people in America are not prepared to give up any of their comforts in order to make amends for the stain they have left on history. Blacks on the other hand, are willing, again and again to forgive the racist American society which mistreats them at every turn, extending yet another mercy.

“It’s made plain that we’re living in a time of doom of this evil world,” said Mr. Muhammad in “Our Saviour Has Arrived.” Brother Jabril Muhammad, a longtime helper of Mr. Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, then reminded us in The Final Call that, “(Mr. Muhammad) pointed out the confused state of those who have blinded Black people, whom they have misled and mistreated for centuries.”

“They have confused the Black Man to the extent that the Black Man does not know now whether he should go for himself or remain seeking guidance from the devil,” wrote Jabril Muhammad.

The post False promises and election pacification appeared first on Final Call News.

“Roy Lewis’s primary concern has been to be a real organic part of local, national, and global Black community,” James Early, Assistant Secretary of Education and Public Service Emeritus, at the Smithsonian Institution, said in an interview. “And to be a participant, but also to be a mind’s eye of reflecting the most resonant, expressive dimensions of our lives.”

That means he has been a visual griot, a visual historian for much of the 20th Century and for the entirety of the 21st Century. He was born in Sibley, Mississippi, south of Natchez in 1937. His professional career began with a 1964 photograph published in Jet magazine of the immortal jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. Notably, his work has remained rooted almost exclusively in the Black Press.

“Whether it be social justice and our revolutionary struggles. Whether it be cultural expressions in music, song, dance, the dignified imagery of ordinary Black people and their profundity. This has been his primary concern,” Mr. Early continued. “Contrasted with, what we normally think about as an excellent and notable photojournalist, photo artist, photo documentarian, as being someone who had been raised as her or his own profile, in order to be able to bring that mind’s eye reflection to a broader public.”

So, if we were to now academically define Black “legendary photographer” with a single picture, it would certainly depict Roy Lewis. If Henrik Ibsen’s oft repeated adage from the 19th Century, that “a picture is worth a thousand words” is true, then Mr. Lewis’s portfolio must be worth one billion words because during the breadth of his career, Roy Lewis has certainly recorded at least one million pictures.

His career began in 1956 when he joined the migration, traveling up the Mississippi River from Natchez, to Chicago. When he got to “The Windy City,” he invoked a greeting from his godmother, who had been a teacher of John H. Johnson, the founder of Johnson Publishing Co., and publisher of Ebony, Jet, and Negro Digest magazines.

A young lady knocked on Mr. Johnson’s door,” Mr. Lewis recalled in an interview, “and I told him, my godmother said hello and he said, ‘Oh yeah, my godmother.’ So, the young lady then told him I was looking for a job and the next week I was working there in the subscription department.

He was really, now “enrolled” in the “Johnson Publishing University,” as he calls it. There, as an apprentice to iconic photographers Isaac Sutton, Moneta Sleet, Herbert Nipson, Lacey Crawford and Ted Williams, and under the tutelage of Jet editor Robert Johnson, Mr. Lewis improved his craft and even branched into filmmaking.

One thing which has made his work stand out in the pages of history, is his presence at historic places when monumental events took place. “A lot of my work has been trips and traveling and conferences and going here, going there,” he said. “My first endeavor into photography (occurred with) the editor of the newspaper, I worked with (in Natchez), The City Bulletin,” Mr. Lewis said. “Bill Williams, he had a camera, he was the editor. So that started me.”

“Roy is a documentary photographer. So, when he covers something, he covers it from beginning to end,” said Caroline Blount, editor of About Time, a magazine out of Rochester, New York which has published as many as a dozen photos by Mr. Lewis on its covers.

“And the beautiful part about it is that when he shares those images with you, then that gives you an opportunity to look into those images and look for something that’s really special. So, for instance, when he covered The Million Man March, he had some dynamite things in there,” Ms. Blount continued. She is not alone in appreciation of his enormous body of work.

“I saw some of the extremely important documentary films he completed on a national Black political convention held in the city of Gary. I think it was only the second such convention in over 100 years,” Ozier Muhammad, grandson of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, told this writer via email.

“I also saw a wonderful documentary that he did on the poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks,” said Mr. Muhammad, himself a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer. Mr. Lewis is especially fond of his images of Ms. Brooks, and Howard University poet Sterling Brown.

“I simply remember anything that had to do with the Black Arts movement, Black culture or Black political empowerment, Roy was usually a part of it, capturing it with his camera— mostly, a movie camera,” Mr. Muhammad recalled.

“He also has a way of tapping in and latching himself to different people to do a historical perspective on those people. So, for example, Dorothy Height, Sterling Brown. You name it, he’s done it. Martin Luther King for that matter, back in that time frame,” Ms. Blount said.

Mr. Lewis was prominently associated with the original Chicago “Wall of Respect” mural, and the national Wall of Respect movement. His career literally spanned the Black Power movement beginning in early 1960s. One of his favorite photographic subjects then, was Ms. Brooks.

“That picture of Gwendolyn Brooks that a lot of people have seen, her with the Afro, when she first converted to the Afro. A Black woman group in Chicago commissioned me to do that portrait. And so, I did it and it became, well (known). She bought a lot of images from me, which are now at the University of Illinois, in a collection.”

At the same time, he was finding more and more work as a cinematographer on a number of highly regarded projects. “The film that we did in 1970, with Muhammad Speaks (newspaper), working with St. Claire (Bourne, Wali Sidique),” is one project in which he still takes pride, he said.

“I did a couple of films with St Claire. And then in ‘70, we did ‘The Nation of Common Sense.’” That was a WNET/PBS program for the series “Black Journal,” focusing on the Nation of Islam and its goals of total economic self-sufficiency and racial separation. Various NOI enterprises are shown, such as the Muhammad Speaks newspaper and Shabazz Bakery, and a number of prominent NOI members, including the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, are interviewed.

He also worked on “Fight of the Champions,” in 1974—the original footage of what became: “When We Were Kings,” a film about the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle,” when Muhammad Ali successfully regained the Heavyweight Boxing Championship from George Foreman. It featured James Brown, B.B. King, and Don King, in the lead-up to the fight and the accompanying Zaire 74 music festival, along with interviews of Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, and Spike Lee. That movie won a coveted Oscar, from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1996.

Today, Mr. Lewis’s traveling exhibit of some of his photos, is now on display in Atlanta. It is titled “Roy Lewis, Everywhere,” and it would seem that he has taken pictures of almost all of the major figures in 20th Century Black history—the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Coltrane, Dr. Dorothy Height, Muhammad Ali, Minister Louis Farrakhan, among them—everywhere, all over this country and in many corners of the globe.

In late October, the 84-year-old Mr. Lewis was named the “Best Photographer Over 83,” by writer Sidney Thomas in the “Best of DC” issue of the Washington City Paper. Best photographer, of any age group, indeed.

“I also remember his very positive spirit, his affability, comfort in conversing on any topic that had to do with Black art and culture and his seemingly endless reservoir of energy,” Ozier Muhammad recalled.

Looking forward, Mr. Lewis said, “I’m really interested in finishing up some of these book projects. I mean, (take) the exhibit down off the wall and put it into the book, ‘Everywhere with Roy Lewis.’ And then there’s a book on River Road, which is about the environment that I worked hard a long time. I want to finish up these books. I want to put some protections around them.

“The thing is I own my work and you know, there’s a difference. And my purpose during that period was in fact to cover our history and now (it) is to continue to own our history and keep it in Black hands.

“I’m interested in now putting some protection around my collection, around my archives. And that to me really is important and my family benefited from all working troubles that I went through and the sacrifices,” he said.

The post Capturing Black history through the legendary lens of Roy Lewis appeared first on Final Call News.

In the ranks of the FOI at Muhammad Mosque No. 26, then located on Filmore and Geary Street in San Francisco, under Captain Jerry X and Minister Henry Majied—a follower since the 1950s, and founder of Mosque No. 8 in San Diego—I strove to be a “Crack Fruit,” laboring to get the word of salvation to our people where I lived then, in San Jose, California, and I endeavored to apply my talents and the training I’d received at San Jose State University as a contributor to the Muhammad Speaks newspaper.

During the summer of 1968—after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—media outlets recruited Black interns. I was one of them and worked in the Newsweek magazine Los Angeles Bureau. At the time Newsweek was one of the U.S. media elite’s “Seven Sisters”—ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time magazine, and Newsweek. For a year before that I edited and published a weekly so-called “underground newspaper” at San Jose State, called The Son of Jabberwock.

In the ranks, I sold the Muhammad Speaks newspaper all around what was known as the South Bay Area—San Jose, Santa Clara, Milpitas, all the way to Salinas in the farm belt. I even won a contest once, selling the most chicken dinners in the mosque to my paper customers. The prize was my FOI uniform.

In pursuit of my professional dream once I was in the Nation of Islam, I was aided by a special mentor, Brother Wahid Muhammad, then Brother Lt. William 5X. Brother Wahid recognized my zeal to help the cause and formed a special squad called the Public Relations Committee, which he led. I was the only other member. With his permission, using the facilities of Mort Levine’s East San Jose Sun newspaper where I had worked, Brother Wahid and I produced newsletters and flyers promoting mosque activities.

As a reporter, I also contributed articles to Muhammad Speaks. Introduced by Brother Angelo X Perez, we went to the mountain headquarters of legendary United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez, who embraced us warmly and let me take a photo of him holding up a copy of Muhammad Speaks. “Truth is the Best Weapon” was the bold, front-page headline.

I went to Soledad Penitentiary and wrote about the birth of the movement by the men who became known as the “Soledad 3”—George Jackson, John Clutchette and Fleeta Drumgo—political prisoners who were charged with the death of a prison guard, after our story exposed a years-old plot by prison guards to target and then assassinate inmates they didn’t like—including W.L. Nolen, whose father we interviewed—by having stooge inmates pick fights, which the guards would stop by murdering their intended target.

I followed Mr. Jackson’s transfer to San Quentin, interviewed his mother Georgia Jackson, and his younger brother Jonathan who both insisted he was innocent, and denied parole again and again and again after a $40 gas station holdup, because he spoke out against the wicked criminal “injustice” system.

I covered the attempt by Jonathan Jackson to free his brother in a hostage exchange for Superior Court Judge Harold Haley, whom he captured in a bold courtroom takeover that was joined by a jailhouse lawyer named Ruchell Cinque Magee. Jonathan Jackson and the judge were both killed during the attempt, and George Jackson remained incarcerated.

The funeral of Jonathan and the assassination and funeral of his brother George, one year later almost to the day followed on my palette of stories along with the arrest of Dr. Angela Davis, accused of murder in the escape plot.

Dr. Davis was put on trial in San Jose, and in addition to covering her trial and acquittal, I even managed to take her an occasional bean pie to the lockup. I sent my six-page account of Dr. Davis’s trial and acquittal to Muhammad Speaks editor Richard Durham via Western Union Telegraph.

All the while advertisements would appear in Muhammad Speaks declaring: “Editors and Writers Wanted,” and each time one would appear I would rush a letter and my resumé. I always received polite replies, once or twice even a form letter from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad himself, also from editor Richard Durham, then from his successor John Woodford, telling me my letter would be kept on file.

Then, in a turn of events as dramatic as my rush into the ranks of the Believers, my life in the Nation was upended. I did not get the assignment to be the student minister over what would now be called a Study Group, in East Palo Alto, California, where I resided and worked at a local college.

After more than 20 years of fault-free service, our minister was set down by Mr. Muhammad. A brother who had just been released from prison comforted me, advising me that the entire Northwest—Oregon, Washington—had no one representing the Teachings, and that I should write the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and ask for a post.

In the meantime, I attended a “unity meeting” called by Minister Majied, then in Oakland. There, Brother Nadar Ali, whom I had known from college, and who was then in Chicago, leading the Nation’s fledgling import business, advised me that John Woodford was no longer editor of Muhammad Speaks, and knowing my background, he said I should write the Honorable Elijah Muhammad—again.

This time, it seems like less than a week had passed and I got an “Air Mail Special Delivery” letter from Mr. Muhammad, signed by him personally, with money, asking me to come right away to talk to him in person.

I took what I thought would be a short leave from my job as a staff member at Foothill College, in Silicon Valley. Was I in for a surprise? I didn’t leave Chicago for weeks.

When I arrived in Chicago, I was met at the airport by Brother Roosevelt 4X, a longtime follower, who told me he actually learned to read and write his own name by practicing, over and over his Saviours’ Letter, until he had copied it perfectly. Brother Roosevelt took me to stay at the 50th On The Lake motel on Lake Shore Drive, and my real adventure began.

The next day I was taken to the home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for dinner. Guests had to arrive before 5:00 p.m. sharp, or be turned away at the door.

At the dinner table I was so nervous, I sat motionless at the table, not wanting to call attention to myself, as though those in the family who ate there every day would not notice me, a total stranger, sitting there numb and in awe of being in the presence of the Messenger of Allah, our Messenger. We believed Messenger Muhammad could listen to our thoughts. I sat there like a bump on a log.

Finally, Mr. Muhammad looked at me down the table and said: “Well Brother, what are you interested in?” I blurted out, in a squeaky voice: “To be editor Sir.” After that I was beyond the mythical “Seventh Heaven,” far above the legendary “Cloud Nine.” I was a dinner guest for a couple of more days before I was asked to come during business hours.

Mr. Muhammad told me at that meeting that I was to go to the new Muhammad Speaks newspaper plant, and while there: “See what’s good. See what’s bad. And look out for the interests of the Nation.” With those instructions I went over to the office. After that, I had dinner every day at the original Salaam Restaurant at 83rd and Cottage Grove Blvd., in the Chatham neighborhood.

The brilliant author Leon Forrest had taken over as editor, and he welcomed me with open arms. The staff had several brilliant writers and photographers. I was shown the operation of the brand-new Goss Suburbanite offset printing press Mr. Muhammad had bought, capable of producing 30,000 copies per hour. I looked at the meat packing facility in the building and other food production, including the manufacture of Omar On The Nile, natural fruit beverage.

Every day I returned to the “Plant” as the building was called, and I helped Mr. Forrest edit some of the copy from the reporters. But I had fallen out of the circle that involved The Messenger. I was soon taken to the Shabazz Restaurant on 71st Street rather than to the Salaam, and I was stuck, lost in the bureaucratic maze of the top leadership, and going nowhere fast.

After about a week, I was at wit’s end, when Brother Nadar told me that in order to get back to see Mr. Muhammad, I should write a report on what I had seen at the Plant, send it to Him and request another meeting with him. Soon, I was back at The House—which is how the Believers referred to the Nation of Islam headquarters—this time in a meeting that included Mr. Forrest, the editor.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad asked Mr. Forrest: “Well, Brother, what do you think about him? Can you use him?” Mr. Forrest said, he needed a Copy Editor, and so it was agreed, I was hired as his assistant that summer of 1972.

After nearly a month, I returned home and packed up my family. My wife, who already had two sons, was expecting our child, and we set out, driving in my new Plymouth Barracuda, to Chicago, and a new career.

The times were challenging. My daughter was born, literally at home in our third-floor walkup apartment during a blizzard in November. Money was tight. But oh, our spirits were soaring.

After nine months or so as copy editor, during which time Mr. Forrest taught me everything he did to put out the newspaper, he left one Friday and did not come back. I learned that his first novel, “There is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden” was just about to be published, and that he was given a teaching position at Northwestern University. He had written the Honorable Elijah Muhammad what amounted to an unusual resignation letter.

He informed The Messenger about his new book and his new teaching assignment, and said that in order for him to continue as editor, he would require a substantial salary increase, and that he would wait at home for a response. So far as I know, Mr. Forrest never received a reply.

Meanwhile, I assumed the reins and the staff continued to publish the paper, on time, as though nothing had happened among the top management. After about four weeks or so, I received a telephone call from The House. One of the secretaries there told me: “Brother Editor, The Messenger wants to speak with you.” That’s how I learned I had gotten the position.

I am so thankful to Allah for that opportunity. I was blessed beyond measure, traveling around the country, going to Mobile, Alabama where the schooner Clotilde (often spelled Clotilda) arrived in 1859, the last slave ship to arrive in this country. There I met a ship, chartered by Mr. Muhammad, carrying two million pounds of our fresh fish, the Nation’s first shipment of Whiting H & G (headed and gutted) fish, a product which would gain legendary status in the mid-1970s.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad sent me, among a delegation, on a month-long trip to Jamaica with Mr. Muhammad’s younger brother Jams Muhammad, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and Muhammad Ali, and a dozen more, all as guests of Prime Minister Michael Manley. I never dreamed I would live among the wonderful people I met—members of Mr. Muhammad’s family, some of his top laborers in Chicago, Minister Farrakhan among them.

Now, 49 years after those frightening moments when for me, everything seemed to crumble right before my eyes, before I found haven, as though in the very “Bosom of Abraham” itself, I am truly blessed to say All Praise is Due to Allah for the many blessings I have known as a result of my efforts to help the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad bring about the Resurrection of the Black man and woman in North America with the Muhammad Speaks newspaper.

(Askia Muhammad is an award-winning journalist, radio host and author. He served as the first Muslim editor of the legendary Muhammad Speaks newspaper, as editor of The Final Call, and continues to serve as Final Call senior editor based in Washington, D.C.)

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